When we speak with donors and philanthropists about AI for climate and nature, we often hear the same refrain: “It’s promising, but we are waiting to see how it evolves.”
A Project Evident report on grantmaker strategies, Funding the Future, found that many funders are stuck between caution and urgency. They see the risks, but they also see that AI is already reshaping every aspect of society.
As the founders of Climate Collective and Klimatkollen — two organizations working at the intersection of climate, nature and technology — we find this deeply problematic. We don’t have time to wait, and we can’t afford to leave climate and nature nonprofits out of the AI conversation.
Many donors share this concern. The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, for example, recently convened philanthropists and family offices for a second field-building conversation on shaping the future of AI for good, and the foundation has shared grantmaking tools and lessons learned to help unlock additional philanthropic capital for AI.
One thing is clear. AI is already reshaping the landscape. More than a billion people use AI chatbots regularly, and ChatGPT has nearly 800 million weekly users.
The fossil fuel industry is plowing ahead on integrating AI to maximize extraction. Fast fashion companies like Shein are churning out even more clothes with proprietary machine-learning applications, doubling emissions in the process. And generative AI is being used for widespread climate disinformation.
At the same time, AI can be a force multiplier for underfunded climate and nature nonprofits. It can help vital climate adaptation efforts, improve early warning systems, help decarbonize industrial processes and increase climate transparency. AI agents can support smallholders to implement regenerative agriculture or coach corporate sustainability teams to accelerate global reforestation efforts.
The question is not whether AI will shape the future, but who gets to decide how.
Resources and reality
In the early days of artificial intelligence research, philanthropic funders poured hundreds of millions of dollars into university labs and nonprofit efforts to advance AI theory and early applications. But now, the landscape is dominated by commercially driven tech firms and corporate and VC-led initiatives, attracting billions to build AI for profit, where sustainability is often an afterthought.
With climate and nature nonprofits already stretched thin — especially after shifts in US funding priorities — AI offers leverage, not luxury. It can help organizations punch above their weight, recognizing that today’s tools weren’t built for or by civil society. Most nonprofits lack the resources and literacy to use AI to its full effect, and few have the means and know-how to build their own solutions.
In “The State of AI in Nonprofits 2025,” TechSoup concluded that large, well-resourced international nonprofits are charging ahead, while smaller ones with fewer resources are falling behind. Budget and staffing constraints are limiting their capacity to implement and scale AI tools.
Guidance on how to evaluate or safely adopt these tools is often missing. According to a 2025 study by The Center for Effective Philanthropy, a vast majority of nonprofit leaders are very interested in expanding AI use; 90 percent of nonprofits and 94 percent of foundations report they’re at least somewhat interested in doing more with AI. In spite of this, only 10 percent of donors offer AI implementation support to their existing grantees or nonprofit partners.
Three actions for philanthropists and donors
To meet this moment, we need to invest in AI capacity for the climate and nature field as a whole — building broad AI fluency beyond tool-specific skills. And we need more funding centering on the role that nonprofits can play in developing AI for climate and nature to plug the gaps left by corporate-driven initiatives.
Corporate AI will not reflect the needs of Indigenous communities, local NGOs or frontline ecosystem stewards. That’s where public and philanthropic funding must step in — and act in three key ways:
First, fund AI literacy for all. Start with small, high-value use cases (e.g. automating reporting or drafting communications) and invest early in safeguards, training and governance. Share lessons across the sector and stay platform neutral and open source as much as possible.
Second, adopt the Earth alignment principle. This proposed framework states that AI must accelerate sustainability without breaching planetary boundaries, democratize access to AI for global sustainability, and strengthen trust and social cohesion to support a stable biosphere.
Third, back experimentation. Prioritize and fund small pilots and scale what works. Look for AI-first approaches to nature and climate, and consider a consortium approach to share learning quickly.
This is a pivotal moment. If donors and philanthropists act now, we can help frontline climate and nature organizations not just keep up with AI — but shape how it’s rewiring society.
Anna Lerner Nesbitt is the CEO of Climate Collective, and Frida Berry Eklund is a co-founder at Klimatkollen.
Guest posts on ImpactAlpha represent the opinions of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of ImpactAlpha.
